


kisses, bella, kisses

by orphan_account



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Fluff, RomaCan, Romanada, Unrequited Love, tagging this because those are unpopular
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2013-08-13
Packaged: 2017-12-24 02:15:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer was a time often filled with warmth, romance, and long days. In the beginning, there was always the reprieve of the start of lazy periods of the months without any worries or cares, but soon the trenchant reality of work and online classes and other exhausting obligations of life filtered in, slowly but surely. It was always then that Chiara Vargas felt as if she was drowning in the copious, overwhelming activities she was partaking in.</p><p>Of course, to make matters worse, one heated day in July, she fell in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kisses, bella, kisses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady-omniscient-supreme-being](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lady-omniscient-supreme-being).



Summer was a time often filled with warmth, romance, and long days. In the beginning, there was always the reprieve of the start of lazy periods of the months without any worries or cares, but soon the trenchant reality of work and online classes and other exhausting obligations of life filtered in, slowly but surely. It was always then that Chiara Vargas felt as if she was drowning in the copious, overwhelming activities she was partaking in.

Of course, to make matters worse, one heated day in July, she fell in love.  
  
It was nothing special, really. An ordinary, unrequited romance for a fellow co-worker by the name of Matthew Williams. Hidden behind thick glasses framed with thin, black rectangles, his beautiful eyes were a velvet, soothing violet color. Cool but warm like the summer months all the same, Chiara found herself unable to tear her stare away from those lovely eyes whenever she had the misfortune of meeting their gaze.  
  
His voice was quiet, sometimes nearly inaudible, and Chiara remembered often getting irritated at him when they first met because of this. It was far too soft for her liking; incredibly passive and was like a faint, dying whisper on a breeze before it was even spoken. He seemed too timid, too unsure of himself, and too subconscious of every single little movement he made while waiting on tables.  
  
(But that's probably why she didn't like him; he reminded her too much of the insecure self she locked away deep inside of her.)  
  
And yet, as the months had passed, Chiara had managed to grudgingly learn more about the coworker she had brushed off as a pushover. She had somehow managed to learn that Matthew's favorite food was pancakes, absolutely soaked in maple syrup, and he ate it at least once a week when he could. He ate it whenever they were serving it in the morning during breakfast, and he would happily eat them before attending to work. She learned one time from overhearing a conversation as she was punching out one day that Matthew played hockey and was on the local team. He had apparently been on the phone, apparently with his brother named Alfred, and had been consoling him in the quiet way he did.

“Al, really–”

There was muffled shouting on the other side, and Chiara glanced at the sighing Canadian out of the corner of her eye. He was rubbing his temples, clearly exhausted – he had had a full shift today – and wanted to just go back home, rest his feet, and sleep.  
  
“Yeah. I understand. I'll talk with her – you really need to – Alfred, Anya isn't – okay, that was _once._ Just because she managed to make a better rocket than you – for God's sake, she's majoring in engineering, of course she's good at – Alfred, seriously. I don't have time to listen to you whine about how you're not getting any 24/7! You know what, go make up with her yourself! I don't care if you're in the middle of a fucking fight or not!“  
  
Chiara's eyes widened in slight surprise and delayed disbelief as Matthew tried to smash his thumb rather viciously on the “END CALL” button on his iPhone, mumbling to himself as he approached the machine to punch out. She hastily moved away to the door and stepped out into the spring air of April, still pondering what she had overheard. Matthew's voice had actually risen to the point of sounding quite irritated, and had grown louder than she had ever heard it before. It was pretty much an added bonus he had sworn – it sounded ridiculous, but honestly, he didn't seem like he even _could_ swear, although she was well aware anyone was capable of opening their mouth and cursing. It made her question how much of the real Matthew she was seeing at work, and for a moment, Chiara had a epiphany: she was always assuming the small, superficial things about people and jumping to conclusions of first impressions without knowing them at all. She had known this previously subconsciously, but had never really thought about it too much before, brushing it off as nothing too important.  
  
It was then when Chiara decided to learn more about Matthew Williams. It was really just to test this sudden realization of hers, to make sure she wasn't making another mistake. She could have chosen any other person; but Matthew was... different, for some reason. She honestly didn't mind being around him, in comparison to her other co-workers; like Victoria Kirkland, the English bitch who liked to drink tea and was Miss I-Fucking-Know-It-All-So-Don't-Question-What-I-Say, who was clearly fantasizing about the French cook who liked to flirt with anything and everything, Francis Bonnefoy. It was blatantly obvious they both wanted in each others' pants, and Chiara wouldn't be surprised if it was confirmed were having hot, passionate sex every night. Or sneaking off to the closet to make out – Chiara almost had the misfortune of stumbling upon that scene one time last February; it's an experience she never wants to speak of again.  
  
But returning from that little digression, Chiara decided to look into Matthew Williams more, just to satiate her own curiosity. And so, for the next few months, she listened more carefully to any conversations he had with their co-workers, their boss, Carmen Fernandez-Carriedo, or on the phone, and watched his movements with poorly disguised interest. She was by no means stalking him; it wasn't like she followed him home or after work or anything like that – although, she had saved his number in her own cell phone. She couldn't help it; it had been posted on the sheet with everybody elses' names and numbers on the bulletin board near the kitchen entrance. It wasn't as if she was ever going to use it, but she was keeping it just in case of an emergency. Right.

Before she knew it, she started to learn all his little habits – like how he chuckled nervously when requested to do something he didn’t really know how to do (always followed by a question asking how he should do the task), or his passive-aggressive responses to being pleaded to cover for someone's shift but usually accepting. But he was still relatively new, only having worked for maybe four or five months, and people liked to take advantage of the newcomers. (Chiara remembered when she first began working at the Three Tomatoes two years ago quite well, but Carmen had looked out for her – when not meeting up for dates with Ludwig Beilschmidt, her awkward German boyfriend, who was clearly using horrible romantic advice books to try and woo her boss. It pissed Chiara off, but then again, most things did.)  
  
She had learned Matthew had a large fondness for animals and had a white dog named Kuma-something – she wasn't entirely sure what his name exactly was, he kept changing it. This indicated he had some sort of memory problem, but Chiara doubted it; he was quite good at his work and learned quickly. He had rather large and broad shoulders, and bigger than average sized hands, but nothing too ridiculous. She found they were warm and surprisingly soft one day when she accidentally reached for the plates at the same time he did. That resulted in a large spewing of swears and attempts to cover up embarrassment with a scowl and such, but Matthew had merely apologized profusely, and smiled a little. Chiara wasn't entirely sure why he did, but she had been too flustered to think of anything coherent at the time.  
  
It was later that night when she had gathered her thoughts and she had been musing to herself over the day's events, when she came down to the dining room for dinner and her younger sister, Sera, was setting down the freshly boiled pasta on the table. Their youngest sibling and only brother, Marcello, was away and sleeping over at his friend's house that evening.  
  
Chiara sat down in deep thought, but outwardly, she appeared to be sulking. Sera noticed this as she began scooping out the pasta for the two of them, pouring generous amounts of tomato sauce on them. “Is there something wrong, Chiara?”  
  
“Huh?” She was snapped out of her thoughts of the blonde Canadian, thinking of how she could hear the music faintly from Matthew's ear buds as he left. The lyrics she had managed to decipher were, ' _Did you say please just follow me? I thought you wanted me 'cause I want you all to myself_ '. With further research, she had discovered the song was “All to Myself” by Marianas Trench. As she had listened to more of their songs, she decided she didn't quite like the rhythm but she felt a kinship with the lyrics – which was possibly worrying, but she tried not to pay attention to the not so subtle thrumming coming from her heart. “Oh, it's nothing.”  
  
“Are you sure? Did anything happen at work today?” Her sister was pretty perceptive, no matter how much people made her out to be an oblivious airhead. She supposed she herself was a good example she shouldn't take first impressions so seriously... But it was too late for that, she had already been observing Matthew for three months now. Sera poured the grated mozzarella cheese onto the sauce, auburn eyes not deterred as she looked at Chiara in that sideways way of her that Chiara just couldn't stay closed off against.  
  
“...Yeah.” _Fucking..._ “That guy I told you about, Matthew.”

“Oh?” Sera's eyes lit up, interest piqued, as she finally sat down to join Chiara. “What about him~?”

“Don't take this the wrong way, because I know you will,” her fork twirled in the sauce covered angel hair, gathering it up like a spindle of thread before leaning forward to take a bite, not making eye contact, “but we were both grabbing for a plate today and our hands touched.”

It sounded like a horribly sappy and dramatized scene right out of the worst fucking romance novel out there written for thirteen year olds who had no idea of the concept of romance besides the “bestseller” romantic books out there on the market. They weren't even well written; most definitely not worth the money Chiara had spent to satiate her curiosity of the wildly popular books she had heard about. Chiara cringed when she heard Sera's immediate reaction – for fuck's sake, she _knew_ this was going to happen, why did she even bother?

“Aww, that's adorable!” Sera exclaimed, wiping her stained lips with her napkin to clean them and beaming in the way a mother would beam when their child told her about their first dating experience. She leaned forward, a (anything but) innocuous smile on her face. “It sounds like love, Chiara~.”

Chiara rolled her eyes, disinterested. She knew this was how Sera was going to react; hell, she had known and lived with her for twenty one years now and knew her better than she knew herself. Sera had tendencies to be overly cheerful constantly and more bubbly than a bar of soap could be, and quicker to jump to the idea of love than any author attempting to write one of the before mentioned best seller books nowadays. “Hardly. It was just a stupid accident.”

“Nothing is ever just on 'accident'. There's a reason things happen!”

“So I hear you say, fucking twenty four hours a day.”  
  
“Chiara, you obviously like him,” Sera pouted, taking a sip of her wine. The sisters usually liked to enjoy wine during their dinner and today was no different, but Chiara hadn't touched hers yet, stiffening at those words, ready to protest. “Why not pursue your feelings? You know nothing else will change otherwise. And besides,” she began to add before Chiara could cut her off, winking, “you can always woo him.”  
  
“Fuck no,” she immediately ground out, glaring at her smirking sister. She hadn't tried to deny Sera's observations about her feelings, because while she would lie to anyone else, she did not lie to her sister. “I'd rather not deal with all that shit. Nothing's going to happen. It'll fade away just like every other crush.”  
  
She tried to sound reassuring and confident as she took bites of her pasta, but her voice was anything but that. It was a failed reassurance for not just Sera, but herself, too.  
  
Chiara Vargas had fallen hard for Matthew Williams. There was no denying that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a prompt on tumblr: "O Juliet and «, FrUK, RusAme or Romano/Canada, but whichever you choose, you have to genderbend one of the characters. Points for historical context.  
> O Juliet: I will write about my character’s feelings for yours."
> 
> There are a few things I’d like to point out, just in case it came off the wrong way but for the most part they were hopefully clear…? Hopefully, but anyways:
> 
> Chiara is fem!Romano. Just a female version, genderbent, like requested. However, Victoria, Carmen, Anya, and Sera are all nyo versions. Meaning, they are female, yes, but they are not simply genderbent. They have their own personalities but similarities to the original.
> 
> About the RusAme: That was my attempt to add in a little historical context because of the Space Race in the Cold War, but I probably failed on that. xD Sorry, I tried!
> 
> About the FrUK: The harshness and superficial air was only Chiara’s PoV about it; I in no way believe that and I love FrUK as you probably know. So yeah, that was just how Chiara saw it.
> 
> About the GerSpa: I have a fondness for this pairing because of the RP site I’m on, Tomorrow Never Dies (tomorrowneverdies.proboards.com). I couldn’t resist sneaking in the hint of the pairing. People should come check us out! *winkwink*
> 
> I'm thinking about writing some companion fics for this, focusing on on the RusAme and the FrUK, and I most likely will if people really like this, or want to see more of the Romanada! Please let me know. ^^
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
